Parenting in a Changing Climate: Tools for Cultivating Resilience, Taking Action, and Practicing Hope in the Face of Climate Change

by Elizabeth Bechard

A critical first step of choosing life, Macy says, is choosing our story. In workshops for The Work That Reconnects, one of the guiding principles is the idea that there are three primary stories of our time: Business as Usual, The Great Unraveling, and The Great Turning. Each of these stories offers a lens through which to see the world and current events, and in the sense that each of these stories is presently being told by fiercely devoted storytellers, they are all true. The story of Business as Usual, Macy says, “is the story of the Industrial Growth Society. We hear it from politicians, business schools, corporations, and corporate-controlled media. Here the defining assumption is that there is little need to change the way we live.” Everything is fine. No need to worry about economic or environmental disruption; they’re just temporary difficulties. We’ll recover, we’ll profit, and everything will be back to normal soon.